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Top scientist leaves Iran after crackdown on environmentalists

The Guardian - Wed, 2018-04-18 15:01

Kaveh Madani had been seen as symbol of Rouhani government’s attempt to reverse brain drain

A top Iranian environmental scientist wooed by Hassan Rouhani’s administration to return home from the UK has left Iran amid a crackdown on environmentalists and pressure from hardliners.

Kaveh Madani had been persuaded to leave his position at Imperial College London last year to serve as the deputy head of Iran’s environment department.

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Costa Coffee to recycle equivalent of all its takeaway cups each year

The Guardian - Wed, 2018-04-18 15:01

UK’s largest coffee shop chain has pledged to recycle up to 500m cups a year by 2020 – a fifth of the total used in the country

The UK’s largest coffee chain is to become the first to commit to recycling the same volume of takeaway cups used by its customers every year in a bid to stop hundreds of millions needlessly ending up in landfill.

Costa Coffee has pledged to recycle up to 500m coffee cups a year by 2020 – the equivalent of its entire annual use of takeaway cups and one-fifth of the total 2.5bn takeaway coffee cups used in the UK each year.

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Coalition renewables naysayers were wrong. So, so wrong

RenewEconomy - Wed, 2018-04-18 14:40
The Coalition has been an inexhaustible source of confident declarations that renewable energy faced serious, immediate limitations in scale and cost. Let's fact-check that.
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Please explain: CHOGM to focus on Turnbull’s weak emissions policy

RenewEconomy - Wed, 2018-04-18 14:06
Malcolm Turnbull's weak climate policy is not going unnoticed at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.
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Destroying the world's natural heritage: 'Komodo is reaching a tipping point'

The Guardian - Wed, 2018-04-18 14:00

The Indonesian national park boasts some of the world’s best dive sites and spectacular marine life, but illegal fishing and unsustainable tourism is threatening its Unesco status

It was the unusual thrashing on the water that caught their attention. As those onboard the dive boat in Indonesia’s Komodo national park drew closer, it became clear it was a green turtle entangled in rubbish and thick fishing net.

The divers managed to lift it out of the water, cut the blue bind from its shell and then set the turtle free, but dive operator Ed Statham says it is just one of the increasing and alarming signs the Unesco heritage site is fast being destroyed.

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Great Australian Bight deserves world heritage protection – Greens

The Guardian - Wed, 2018-04-18 13:51

Party announces it will campaign for application to be made to Unesco in bid to stop drilling

The Greens have launched a campaign to give the Great Australian Bight world heritage protection – but such a move would need the government’s support.

The party announced on Wednesday it would campaign for an application to be made to the Unesco to place the bight on the world heritage list.

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Chris Uhlmann’s windy “truthiness” adds to policy fog

RenewEconomy - Wed, 2018-04-18 13:38
Chris Uhlmann’s tweet is just the latest in a long series of biased reporting on South Australia’s energy transition.
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Elon Musk’s ‘Westworld for cars’ has gone horribly wrong

RenewEconomy - Wed, 2018-04-18 13:31
"Humans are underrated": After touting robots, Musk now blames them for Tesla production woes.
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National Energy Guarantee ready for detailed design and stronger ambition

RenewEconomy - Wed, 2018-04-18 13:30
The Energy Security Board (ESB) should proceed with a complete and detailed design of the National Energy Guarantee following encouraging progress on the high-level design of the policy, the clean energy industry said today.
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Deep-sea mining possibly as damaging as land mining, lawyers say

The Guardian - Wed, 2018-04-18 13:02

Environmental and legal groups warn of potential huge effects on Indigenous people and the environment

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The “new global gold rush” over deep-sea mining holds the same potential pitfalls as previous resource scrambles, with environmental and social impacts ignored and the rights of Indigenous people marginalised, a paper in the Harvard Law Review has warned.

A framework for deep-sea mining – where polymetallic nodules or hydrothermal vents are mined by machine – was first articulated in the 1960s, on an idea that the seabed floor beyond national jurisdiction was a “common heritage of mankind”.

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Scientists explain how plastic-eating enzyme can help fight pollution – video

The Guardian - Wed, 2018-04-18 12:27

Scientists in Britain and the US say they have engineered an enzyme that eats plastic, a breakthrough that could help in the fight against pollution. The enzyme is able to digest polyethylene terephthalate, or PET. The team from the University of Portsmouth and the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory hope to one day produce the enzyme on an industrial scale

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Will China beat the world to nuclear fusion and clean energy?

BBC - Wed, 2018-04-18 10:53
China's nuclear fusion research might put the country at the fore of future clean energy solutions.
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Plankton named after Attenborough series

BBC - Wed, 2018-04-18 10:26
Scientists at University College London (UCL) bestowed the honour on Sir David Attenborough and the documentary team.
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CP Daily: Tuesday April 17, 2018

Carbon Pulse - Wed, 2018-04-18 09:39
A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.
Categories: Around The Web

Costa Coffee vows to boost cup recycling

BBC - Wed, 2018-04-18 09:00
The UK's biggest coffee chain says it will recycle as many disposable cups as it sells by 2020.
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Northern Territory lifts ban on fracking

ABC Environment - Wed, 2018-04-18 06:52
Environmental groups have warned shale oil and gas development could increase greenhouse gas emissions and farmers are worried fracking could pollute rivers and bores across the region.
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Space diamonds 'came from lost planet'

BBC - Wed, 2018-04-18 06:43
The space rock that exploded in 2008 seems to have come from the early Solar System.
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Australia’s slow march towards a National Energy Guarantee is gathering pace

The Conversation - Wed, 2018-04-18 06:11
State energy ministers meet this week to discuss the National Energy Guarantee. While the policy has been criticised as too modest, it would put us light years ahead of the previous climate policy paralysis. David Blowers, Energy Fellow, Grattan Institute Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
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Curious Kids: Why do sea otters clap?

The Conversation - Wed, 2018-04-18 06:10
Sea otters can break the shell on a shellfish by hitting it against a stone resting on their belly. This can look like clapping. Some even have a favourite stone they carry around in their armpits. David Hocking, Research associate, Monash University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
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The great Australian garbage map: 75% of beach rubbish made of plastic

The Guardian - Wed, 2018-04-18 04:00

Data compiled from rubbish collected by volunteers aims to encourage industry to control plastic pollution at the source

Australians are battling against a tide of millions of pieces of discarded plastic debris at beach clean-up events all across the continent, according to two years of data analysed by Guardian Australia.

Some 2,651,613 pieces of debris were collected from beaches and recorded in a database during 2016 and 2017, with about three-quarters of items made from plastics.

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